What is one tip for learning SEO?
From experimenting to starting from the fundamentals, here are 13 answers to the question, “What is one tip for learning SEO?”
- Use Google as a Top Resource to Learn SEO Practices
- Experiment
- Start from the Fundamentals
- Study Other Websites to Reverse-engineer their Efforts
- The One-hour-a-day Formula
- Start With Understanding the Foundation of SEO
- Know Your Audience
- Never Forget You’re Writing for People
- Build Yourself Your Own Website and Learn by Doing
- Build and maybe Break a Few Websites First
- Learn the why Behind Components in SEO Tools
- Learn SEO by Doing SEO
- It’s Easier Than You Think
Use Google as a Top Resource to Learn SEO Practices
As someone with over a decade of SEO experience, my advice is to use Google as your top resource. There are droves of free information readily available from Google that can teach you best practices for SEO. Additionally, it is essential that you never stop learning, because SEO and Google’s updates are constantly evolving. What you might have learned five years ago has become obsolete. Always brushing up on your skills will help you stay ahead of the curve and use SEO effectively.
Jonathan Zacharias, Founder, GR0
Experiment
One tip for learning SEO is to experiment. Try different things and see what works best for you. Some techniques work better than others, so you must be willing to test and learn as you go. Also, it’s important to always keep track of what you’re doing so you can replicate your successes and correct your mistakes. Keep in mind that SEO is always changing, so you must constantly learn and experiment to stay ahead of the curve. Stay up-to-date with the latest changes by reading authoritative sources like Moz, SEJ, and Search Engine Land.
Gosia Hytry, Head of Content, Spacelift
Start from the Fundamentals
One tip for learning SEO is to start by focusing on one or two fundamentals of SEO at a time and then build from there. For example, start off understanding all about search engine rankings first before diving into optimization tactics! Then focus on understanding the concept of keyword research and move on to understanding how to use those keywords in your SEO strategy and content.
Once you have the SEO basics down, it’s time to apply what you’ve mastered! You can take a blog or even an entire website and try to come up with optimal optimization strategies. Additionally, you can sign up for an SEO course to sharpen your knowledge or read up on SEO techniques in online guides and tutorials. Perfecting your SEO skills takes a bit of patience and practice – and after just a few trials and errors, you’ll start seeing results, as in SEO, overnight success is a “myth.” No matter which way you decide to get started with SEO, keep up the momentum, and don’t give up – it’s worth it!
Maria Harutyunyan, Co-Founder , Loopex Digital
Study Other Websites to Reverse-engineer their Efforts
The great thing about SEO is that, for the most part, there are no hiding places—everything is available to you in plain sight, especially if you have access to some good SEO software like Ahrefs or Semrush. Look at other websites that are ranking well in Google and ask yourself why that might be. Is it because of content, links, their products, or their services? While it’s not going to be very clear-cut (there are so many factors that come into play here), it’s going to be beneficial to study what tends to work, particularly when you’re trying to understand the intent of the search queries and what the format of your own content needs to be.
I also think having your own website is a great place to try out new tactics—find out for yourself what does and doesn’t work; this is a very powerful way to learn SEO.
Matt Tutt, SEO consultant, Matt Tutt Digital Marketing
The One-hour-a-day Formula
Immersing yourself in content related to SEO, such as blogs, online courses, ebooks, and webinars, will help build your knowledge base. Spend an hour each day reading content, watching webinars, or taking courses to help you better understand SEO. Segment your learning into topics such as keyword research, on-page SEO, link building, etc. to make it easier and more manageable. A good strategy is to understand the basics before diving into more complex topics. Finally, practice building websites or optimizing content to help put your knowledge into practical use. Make sure to keep track of your successes and failures so that you can replicate the former and avoid the latter in future campaigns. All the best, Digital Marketing and SEO Expert.
Serbay Arda Ayzit, Founder/Owner, Serbay Arda Ayzit
Start With Understanding the Foundation of SEO
One tip for learning SEO is to start by understanding the basics of how search engines work. This includes understanding what keywords are, how they are used, and how search engines use them to rank websites. Once you have a solid foundation in these concepts, you can then start to explore more advanced SEO techniques, such as link building and content optimization. By taking a systematic approach and learning one concept at a time, you can gradually build your knowledge and expertise in SEO. At the end of the day, SEO for SEO’s sake is not a winning strategy. You should have a core strategy and unique viewpoint in the market. Enhancing your perspective with SEO tactics is a great way to stand out.
Matt Paige, VP, Marketing & Strategy, HatchWorks
Know Your Audience
There is one tip that will always be true no matter what the latest changes are: know your audience and talk to them like a human being! When crafting a piece of content for an SEO campaign, it’s not enough to just know the industry jargon and the latest changes in the algorithm; it’s equally as important to know who your audience is and how they communicate. This way, you can make your site more appealing to your audience and increase the likelihood that they’ll purchase your product or service.
Jack O’Carroll, Founder, Honest SEO
Never Forget You’re Writing for People
“Content is King” is a meaningless aphorism. Everyone understands that great content drives results, but few people actually know what great content is or how to create it. Sadly, “great” has been misinterpreted as “longer,” leading to a tidal wave of 3,000+ word posts for some of the simplest queries. It’s unnecessary. Instead, focus on the user; understand search intent and then write something for that person. SEO best practices can help make the piece more readable and crawlable, but content that really speaks to the reader will drive results: ranking, traffic, and all that will follow. Never forget you’re writing for real people.
James De Roche, Managing Partner, Lead Comet
Build Yourself Your Own Website and Learn by Doing
For me, the best way to learn SEO is to learn by doing – get yourself a domain name and some cheap hosting and just start writing! Choose a topic that you’re passionate about so it won’t feel like such a chore, and just see how you get on. That’s how I first got into the industry, almost by accident, and I’ve learned so much by just figuring it out myself. I think it’s hard to grasp and learn some of the more technical concepts without getting your hands dirty. Remember to try and pick a topic where it won’t be impossible to compete, and put your own unique spin or angle on whatever it is that you do. If you’re passionate about it, I’m sure you’ll go far!
Terry Smith, SEO Consultant, Google Penalty
Build and maybe Break a Few Websites First
One of the best ways to learn and develop your skills as an SEO is to actually put things into practice. You will learn a lot more by testing and implementing different approaches yourself than you ever will by just reading guides, watching videos, or attending workshops. It’s easier than ever to build your own website, and it will give you a testbed to try out new things and make mistakes without the fear of tanking your company’s or clients’ websites. Develop that testing mindset, learn from the outcomes, and you will have a strong career in SEO ahead of you.
Edward Roberts, SEO Specialist, Page Not Found
Learn the why Behind Components in SEO Tools
Analyze various SEO tools and platforms. If a tool reports on a certain factor, make sure you know why that element matters to the SEO process. If you don’t know, go learn everything you can about it.
Develop an understanding of its place in the holistic context of the SEO process. For example, many tools report on pages that have duplicate H1 and title tags. This factor is being reported. Do you know why it matters, or how important it is? If you can’t expertly answer this question, then research and learn! Almost all information is a Google search away. Answers to most things SEO are not hard to find. Knowing the right questions to raise is the hard part. SEO is typically a mile wide and a foot deep – hundreds of landmines to avoid and interconnected things to orchestrate correctly. Mastering the key concepts behind factors commonly reported on inside SEO tools will lead you to SEO mastery. Let curiosity be your guide!
Tom Rusling, Founder, Audience Key
Learn SEO by Doing SEO
There are a lot of really great free resource guides available online to learn SEO. One of the best, in my opinion, is from backlinko.com. It’s important to study these resources and understand the fundamentals.
But, if you really want to learn SEO, you need to put knowledge into practice. My tip would be to create a website based off of an interest you have, or a keyword opportunity you’ve discovered, and then get to work trying to rank that website. You’ll be amazed at how fun and addicting it can be to track your rankings and to see your efforts pay off in the search results. As a bonus, if you’re trying to break into the SEO business, you can prove on the spot that you know how to rank a website. Nothing impresses a potential employer more than proof that you know how to do a task they are hiring for.
Chris Rossi, Digital Marketing Consultant , Attorney Sluice
It’s Easier Than You Think
Making a WordPress site is one of the best ways to learn SEO, and I recommend it to anyone interested in digital marketing. Find something that interests you, and then dive right in. With the help of YouTube, free WP themes, and plugins like YOAST, building a basic website these days is very simple.
Once your website is live, you can choose some keywords you want to rank for. This will prompt you to create content, and the process will continue to progress from there. While researching various SEO blogs along the way can be beneficial, the majority of your direct questions can now be quickly answered with the new ChatGPT. Try out various plugins and settings, as well as keyword research tools, to see how they affect your search engine ranking. Learning SEO by doing is a must and much easier than you think. So stop procrastinating and go and build your first site.
James Houser, Senior SEO Manager, Reflexive Media
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